Matching Merch for Clubs, Teams and Group Events (Everyone Gets Their Size)

Every club has one: the poor soul who volunteers to "sort the merch" and spends the next month chasing sizes in the group chat, wrangling spreadsheets, and apologising because the supplier needs 25 units per style and there are only 14 members.

If that's you — this post is your survival guide.

The organiser's real problem isn't design. It's logistics.

Getting a group to agree on a design is the easy half. The hard half:

• Members range from XS to 3XL
• Half want hoodies, half want tees, someone wants a polo
• The budget is whatever people are willing to chip in
• Traditional suppliers want minimums per style, per colour

That last one is the killer. It's why club merch so often ends up as one compromise garment in one boxy fit that nobody's thrilled about.

The fix: one group order, any mix of styles

Team orders — one logo across everything — run through us directly by email, and there are no per-style walls: one piece per style is completely fine, as long as the whole order totals at least 12 pieces. So a 14-member run club can order:

• 5 × Hawke Relaxed Hoods (the winter-training faithful)
• 4 × Austin Tees (the summer optimists)
• 3 × Cameron Relaxed Crews
• 2 × Terri Polos (the brunch-after-parkrun contingent)

Same club badge on all of it, printed to last on every piece. Women's and men's ranges both run wide size spans (many styles XS–5XL), so "everyone gets their size" is actually true.

What it costs per member

Email us your size-and-style list and we'll quote the group — tees at the lower end, heavyweight hoods at the top, everything in between, with per-piece pricing that improves as the order grows.

A practical tip for organisers: collect size and style preferences in one form before you ask for the quote, then charge each member their own garment's price. It's fairer than averaging, and nobody subsidises the hoodie people.

Beyond apparel: the fun stuff

Some of the best club merch isn't clothing:

• Custom socks — our Reese socks come in no-show through knee-high, with your design knitted in (not printed on). Grip-sole versions exist for the pilates and football crowd. Genuinely the most-loved item we make for clubs.
• Enamel pins — season milestones, committee thank-yous, 100-game badges.
• Drink bottles and shakers — for gyms and sports clubs, a branded bottle gets used at every single session.

(Heads-up: non-apparel items like socks, pins and bottles are made in larger production runs, so they're best for bigger clubs, fundraisers and events — email us your numbers and we'll advise what works.)

Getting it done before the season / reunion / big weekend

Standard lead time for most products is 2–6 weeks from artwork approval, so start the process about 8 weeks out to leave room for the group chat to argue about the design. The process itself is simple: send us your idea (rough is fine), we quote it, you approve a digital mockup, we make it. One note on where to order: our online store is built for one-off pieces with their own artwork — for a team order with the same logo across everything, email is the way. Pickup from Chadstone is free; otherwise it's $10 flat shipping Australia-wide — one box to the organiser, not fourteen envelopes.

Volunteer merch-wrangler, we salute you

Send your design — or just "we're a netball club and we want hoodies" — to hello@madebyspool.com.au and we'll take it from there. You handle the group chat; we'll handle everything else.